Take a Breath
by Hawki
Summary: Elseworlds Oneshot: Five years. For five years, the sun had tormented her. Each breath might have been her last. In the end though, she had to let it out. The light turned to fire, the rage turned to fury. The question then was, what would happen next?


_A/N_

_So, as far as origins go, I'd say this is 90% DCEU Supergirl, 5% Arrowverse Supergirl, 5% "other." Truth be told, it was intended to be entirely set in the DCEU, but when I got to fact checking, a lot of what I'd written turned out to be too incongruent with Kara's DCEU backstory. So, admittedly I'm posting this in the TV _Supergirl _section as it will grant more exposure (I know, I'm terrible), but admittedly it's a tangental connection. _

* * *

**Take a Breath**

Westgate Shopping Mall's architect had the concept of natural light in mind. As in, there were plenty of skylights and whatnot to ensure that sunlight streamed into the mall's interior. It was a way on cutting down on the complex's carbon footprint, and to give it a more natural sense. That the people of National City who ventured into the building weren't cut out from the outside world. That the natural world could follow them in here, as the sun fed trees, flowers, and had its light dance in water fountains.

For most of the people milling around, it was a little perk that made their shopping experience more pleasant. For Kara Danvers, it was torture.

No-one glanced at the blonde-haired girl in the sunglasses walking through Westgate. No-one knew that a kryptonian was in their presence. No-one could have guessed that the girl, clad in a t-shirt and jeans far too blasé for California, was walking with a pounding head and the taste of nausea, making it even harder to breathe. No-one in this place knew what it was like to feel like your skin was burning. Not as in being turned shades of red due to lack of sunscreen, but rather the sensation of every cell in one's body drinking in solar radiation. In the long run, the girl knew it was making her stronger. In the short term, it felt like her body was being ripped apart.

And then there was the sound. The constant barrage of sound both near and far. Husbands and wives arguing. Children screaming for toys. Some overly cheerful voice on the mall's intercom telling her about what kind of toothpaste she should buy. The endless, constant noise – like drilling a spike into the back of her head. She winced. She gritted her teeth. She tried to steady her breathing – like humans, kryptonians breathed oxygen, but there was so much of the stuff here on this planet that it was on the threshold of being poison for her lungs. As her adoptive parents had taught her to, she closed her eyes, and began to count to three.

_One._

There were some children laughing.

_Two._

There was a bouncing ball.

_Three._

"Oof."

She stumbled, as the ball, then the children, bumped into her. She stumbled, falling backwards. Instinctively, she put her hands behind her back, the palms facing the ground.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

There were two children looking down on her – a boy with the ball in his hands, and a girl carrying a Wonder Woman doll. Coming up to them was a very haggled looking woman that Kara supposed was their mother.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm…fine," Kara said.

"Here, let me help you."

She extended a hand, which wasn't what Kara wanted. The woman couldn't see it, but she was levitating just an inch above the ground, as instinct had kicked in and saved her from the fall. And Kara wasn't too keen on taking people's hands, because every time she did so, there was the risk that she'd break their hand. She'd done that to her adoptive mother once, and despite her foster parents' words and patience, Kara had never been able to forgive herself. Nevertheless, the hand of friendship was being offered, and as the Last Daughter of Krypton, she was obliged to take it. And besides, she thought bitterly, if she did break the woman's hand, that was small fry compared to the deaths of hundreds. Just because the people of this world loved Superman, that didn't mean they loved kryptonians.

Still, she managed it, getting to her feet.

"Now," the woman said to her son. "What do you say?"

_Oh please, do we have to do this?_

"Sorry," the boy said, hiding behind his soccer ball.

"It's fine, really," Kara said.

"You sure dear? You look a little flushed?"

Kara took off her glasses and rubbed them. Given how the children recoiled, she could tell that was a mistake. Even their mother, who was hiding her emotions better than her children, couldn't hide her concern.

"You sure dear? Your eyes are a bit…"

_Oh shit._

She flipped the glasses round and saw what they were getting at. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she could see some of the veins leading to them pressing against her skin. The solar energy building inside her – it needed an outlet, and through some quirk of physiology, the closest outlet were her eyes. The principle of laser vision, only while she hadn't been able to shoot lasers out of her eyes, a lot of the time it felt like lasers were going into them.

"Mummy, what's wrong with her eyes?" the girl asked, hugging her Wonder Woman doll close.

"I'm…I'm sure it's nothing dear."

Kara popped the glasses back on, struggling not to hyperventilate. "It's fine, really. I…" She swallowed her breath. "I'm just going to sit down somewhere." She looked around, choosing a nearby bench over the floor, even if the floor might have cooled her down a bit. "There," she said.

She hurried over, her super-hearing picking up the boy talking about her eyes, the mother talking about drinking, and the girl asking what the word "intoxicated" meant. Kara didn't know what irritated her more – the fact that they were wrong (she didn't drink), or the fact that they were right – she _was_ intoxicated. Her body was swimming in solar energy, and for five years, she'd been drunk on the stuff. The constant headaches, the nausea…she was drunk, and had no means of stopping the flow of poison.

She sat down, removed the glasses again, and began rubbing her eyes and forehead. Her eyes were stinging. Her forehead was pounding. Her hearing was picking up everything, including the beating of her own heart. The faster it beat, the more air she consumed, and again, her body was getting more oxygen than it needed.

_One. _She began counting again.

_Two. _She continued to rub her eyes.

_Three. _She kept her hands over them, as the stinging in them was reduced by the touch of tears.

_Four. _Still counting. Still rubbing.

_Five. _She took a pill from her pocket and popped it in – it was morphine. Enough to kill a human, but in this case, just enough to dull her headache.

_Twenty minutes, _Kara reflected. She laid back against the bench, taking some solace in the tree above her. _Just need twenty minutes._

* * *

Twenty minutes had extended to thirty, and she was still feeling terrible. For better or worse, it had given her plenty of time to reflect.

Once, she'd been Kara Zor-El. A scout in her world's Expedition Corps, sent out to find planets for kryptonian habitation. Like Superman, her pod had crashed on Earth, hundreds of years before Krypton had met its end, as her people had turned their gazes inward rather than outward for resources. In the Earth year 2015, it had been recovered by Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers – both of them A.R.G.U.S. agents, both of them searching Ellesmere Island for any other kryptonian tech. Well, they'd found her. A girl of sixteen biological years who'd stumbled out of her pod. A girl who, thanks to her universal translator, could understand the kryptonoid-esque aliens before her. A girl who, under the Arctic's summer sun, had begun to scream as Earth's sun did its damn best to kill her.

They'd managed to save her. They'd used similar techniques to those used with humans afflicted with photophobia. They'd hooked her up to a breathing apparatus designed to give her less oxygen than what the air around her would. They'd taken her on their ship, taken them back to their home in the United States, they'd explained that the singing creatures around the house were called birds, and that they weren't harmful. They'd explained that because of her kryptonian physiology, and that she was under a yellow sun, she probably didn't have to worry about getting harmed at all.

They'd also explained that she was the last of her kind. Krypton had been destroyed decades ago. Renegades led by a General Zod had been killed two years ago. And mere months ago, the Last Son of Krypton had been killed in battle against what Kara recognised as a desecration – a weapon Krypton had sworn against using even before she'd been born. She'd cried. She'd struggled to breathe. She'd run out of what passed for a house on this planet, and begun to scream, as the sun beat down on her, poisoning her body as surely as the words of the Danvers had poisoned her souls. She'd been pulled back inside where the effects of the radiation was slightly mitigated, and she was told, among other things, that she'd had to hide her powers. As many people feared Superman as had loved him, and if she revealed herself to the world now, her new parents thought that fear would outweigh love.

She'd followed their advice. She'd stayed out of the sun, even if its light still found a way into its body. In what humans called STEM, she was already an expert (hard not to be since Krypton's tech was advanced by millennia), so she'd spent time teaching herself on Earth's culture and history, finding that culture_s _and _histories _were better terms to use since this planet was still divided into nation-states, still divided between faith, race, and flag. It appeared that Earth wasn't so different from Krypton in that its history had had highs and lows, but had only so far been confined to a single world. A world that needed hope, something, or someone, to unite mankind because they were apparently incapable of doing that themselves. For a moment, she'd even entertained doing it herself. After all this pain as the sun assaulted her, there had to be light at the end of the tunnel, right?

There had been, but not for her. Superman had returned. The world looked up to the sky – not at Kara Danvers, now twenty-one years old, now starting out as an office assistant at CatCo. Not at the girl that the staff knew not to bother too much, given how sensitive she was to light and sound. She worked alone, and they left her alone, never knowing what was going through her mind. Wondering if she was right to keep herself silent. Wondering, not then, but now, if she should head home. She was breathing more naturally, and her head had stopped pounding, but there was no guarantee that it would stay that way. Maybe she should-

_No._

She got to her feet. She was living on Earth now. Earth people, least in this country, spent their money on "stuff." Kryptonians didn't buy "stuff," because when you were genetically engineered from birth to fulfil a single role, all your "stuff" was provided for you, and you weren't expected to look elsewhere. Still, the people here were free to buy "stuff," and since buying "stuff" was a big part of this country, of capitalism (either the worst or best thing ever intended depending on who you talked to), Kara figured that she too should buy "stuff." Like, girl stuff. Like, maybe stuff in the shop opposite her titled _Fashionista_, selling all manner of clothing catering to women. Like, not any red capes or blue shirts with logos on them that happened to resemble an **S**, but fine, whatever. She took a breath and walked into the store.

_Hell._

It was in wonderment and despair. Wonderment, because by Rao the dresses were pretty. Black dresses. Blue dresses. Red dresses. She'd never got to wear dresses on Krypton. Only the higher bloodlines had, and those had been all black – a uniform colour for a uniform world. But on the flipside of this was despair, because the people looking at the dresses, and the people looking at the people doing the looking (in other words, customers and staff), were all dressed better than she was. It quickly occurred to Kara that this was a place where people dressed pretty to get even more pretty. In a t-shirt and jeans, bereft of rings, earrings, or any other kind of adornment, it was clear to her just how out of place she was.

"Can I help you ma'am?"

It was also clear to the woman who'd approached her – black suit, black hair, and a name tag that said Sheronda. Kara just stared at her.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?"

"F…fine," she whispered.

She wanted to run. The sun had increased her speed as well as her strength, and if she ran now, she might be able to be able to face herself in the mirror tomorrow. But the woman was looking at her t-shirt, then her sunglasses, and the look on her face was reminding her of Mary Poppins for some reason (damn that was a weird movie), and-

"Um, yeah," Kara said. She took off her sunglasses. "Fine. All fine. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

Sheronda looked at her eyes. "Right," she murmured. "Fine."

Were they red? Oh Rao, they were probably red. Sheronda probably thought she was serving someone recovering from a hangover. Like, why else would the blonde bimbo be on the verge of hyperventilating, or carrying a pack of painkillers in her pocket? Like, what else would be causing a pounding in her head and-

"So," Kara said. "Dresses."

"Dresses," Sheronda murmured.

"I'm here for…dresses."

"Uh-huh," Sheronda said, glancing outside at a passing security guard before returning her gaze back to the kryptonian. "Well, we've got dresses here. What type?"

"Um…nice…dresses?"

Getting "stuff" was much harder than it looked.

Sheronda sighed. "What's your size?"

"My size, um…" She didn't know. The back of her t-shirt probably said so, but for all her powers, contortion wasn't among them. Desperately, she tried to think about what her foster mother had said the first time she'd got her some clothes, only it had been hard to listen, because she could hear things happening a mile away at the same time and-

"Wow, what's that?!"

The diversion from the question of sizes was only half that. The other half was genuine wonderment as Kara made herself over to the mannequin. Thanks to her hearing, she could hear Sheronda murmur something about valley girls, but she didn't mind.

"Is that a corset?" Kara asked.

Sheronda walked over, looking a bit more cheerful in that this conversation was going somewhere. "Just came in last month."

Kara gingerly ran her fingers among the fabric. "I thought they stopped making these over a century ago. Like, didn't they make it hard to breathe or something?"

"Oh, they never stopped, they just faded away," Sheronda said. "Still, new decade, new fashion, new styles." She looked at Kara. "Might be a bit out of your range though."

"Oh, don't worry," Kara said. "Trust me, I'm not going to be short of breath." _Not because of a corset at least._

"No, I mean…you…do have money, right?"

Kara blinked. Yes, she did have money – even office assistants at CatCo came home with impressive salaries. But that wasn't it. It was the question. The look in the woman's eyes.

"Um…yes?"

"Is that a question? Either you do or you don't?"

Kara tried to open her mouth but no words came out. Her head was pounding again. There was…there was too much oxygen in here. The world was getting loud.

_One. _She closed her eyes.

"Ma'am, I'm happy to fit you out, but if you can't-"

_Two_.

"…pay for it, then I'm afraid we-"

_Three. _Kara opened her eyes.

That was when the explosion happened.

It wasn't in the store itself, but the force of the blast shattered windows, sent people diving for cover, and sent mannequins tumbling down. People screamed. Kara screamed as she fell to her knees. Her head. It wasn't just being pounded on, it was like a thousand blades were cutting through her skull. Alarms were ringing. People were screaming. Children were crying. Outside, a flock of birds had taken to the sky. Someone was laughing. Dogs were barking. Feet pounded on concrete, on wood, on glass.

And she could hear all of it. The whole world was coming to her.

_One._

She cradled her head. She wanted it to stop. She wanted it all to stop.

_Two._

She gingerly got to her feet, wincing, still clutching her head. Covering her ears in a vain attempt to make the world less big.

_Three._

She opened her eyes, and saw the staff trying to calm down the customers. Trying to follow emergency procedures that they'd probably never thought they'd have to use. None of them paid attention to her. Not the valley girl in a shoddy t-shirt that was probably recovering from a hangover. Nothing at all.

_I've got to go._

She stumbled out of the shop and into the mall proper.

_I want to go._

She knelt down – the ringing was even worse here. Glass crunched under her sneakers, but she didn't care. It couldn't cut her. But the sun. The damn sun. It still poured in from the skylight. It reflected off the glass. It bombarded her. Poisoned her. Mocked her.

_I want to go home…_

Home. Home was 2000 light years away. Home was a world orbiting a gentle red sun. Home was forever gone. Her people were forever gone. She was the Last Daughter of Krypton, and even in this place, she was alone. Ignored by the people running and screaming away from the truck that had detonated after ploughing into the mall.

_Just want it to end…_

"Hello, my dears."

The voice. It wasn't too loud, and it wasn't directed at her, but she heard it all the same. Wincing, squinting through the blinding light, she looked ahead. As to what exactly the people were running away from. Or rather, _whom_.

"Sweet mammals, always running. Never taking enough time to take it easy and just let the sun wash over you."

_Oh hell._

Even in the confidence of near-invincibility, Kara wanted to run. Because there were a number of psychopaths on this planet, and one of them was Pamela Isley, better known as Poison Ivy. A metahuman who'd been transferred from Blackgate Prison to an A.R.G.U.S. site in California. Yes, she had hacked her dad's computer for a bit of fun, thanks for asking.

The burning truck was unmarked, but Kara quickly guessed that it must have been the A.R.G.U.S. truck transporting her. And that the shambling creatures of flesh and bark that stumbled out to be consumed by the fire…they'd been the guards transporting her.

"Thought I'd decorate this place," Poison Ivy said. She walked up to one of the trees that had been planet in the mall. She rested a hand against it. "Poor thing. It just needs some blood and bone, and then it can bloom."

Something came from the woman's right hand – the one rested against its bark. Kara winced – she could hear what was happening to the tree, how its molecular structure was altered by the toxins coming out from the eco-terrorist ahead of her. The woman's green skin was turning a shade of brown, her amber eyes glowing like the Cheshire cat.

_Gotta go._

There was no way Poison Ivy was getting out of this. This was Capital City, and the middle of the day. Sooner or later the police would be here, and then this would all be sorted out, and then she could go back to worrying about dresses, and getting Cat Grant her coffee, and-

_No._

Security guards were running up towards Ivy. They had their guns out.

_Move._

They went to fire and the metahuman looked at them. "Buzz off, mammals."

From her left hand came a vine, knocking them away in a single sweep.

"Ah," Ivy whispered. "More fertilizer."

The tree was looking very…not so tree like. Ivy's skin had turned a shade of brown. And she was advancing on one of the guards.

"Shall you be first?" Ivy whispered, as more vines wormed their way from her wrists. "Shall you help my baby grow?"

_Damn it Kara, this isn't your-_

She began running. Her head was pounding. She was gasping for breath. But if she didn't' do something, people were going to die.

_And what happens when your secret's out?_

As she ran, she looked for something, anything that would serve as a mask. Past a Wonder Woman doll, past a soccer ball, past a-

_Oh, come on!_

**Batman Mask – Ages 3 and Up**

She glanced at the mask. She glanced at the security guard, now lifted into the air by one of Ivy's vines. Screaming, as the tree's vines writhed, as if anticipating a feast.

_Didn't want to do this. Just wanted a damn dress! _She ripped open the mask and tied it around her face. She knew she looked ridiculous, but while various heroes seemed to be able to pull off their jobs without masks, just as many were incapable of that. And besides, this was going to be a one-off thing.

"Open wide," Ivy whispered. "The baby's coming for the tree tops…"

_Rock a bye baby_. Kara closed her eyes. Her adoptive mother had sung that to her once…as the trees had whispered…after the sun had set…as the world at last had become small…

_Do it._

She let out a yell and jumped through the air. It was clumsy. It was foolhardy. But she did manage to hit the vine and severed it with a single blow.

_Wow._

Her head was pounding. Her lungs were screaming. For a moment, her eyes were as red as Rao itself. But it did the job. Ivy screamed, as her vine was severed. The guard screamed, as he fell to the ground. Kara yelled as she landed on the surface, her sneakers forming a pair of indents.

_Oh boy. That's not gonna come out quick. _She turned to the security staff who were looking at her. "Go! Run!"

They obeyed her. Unfortunately, Ivy didn't. She looked at Kara, her eyes shining, and her lips in a sneer.

"Why Batgirl," she whispered. "You forgot the rest of her suit."

Her head still pounding, Kara's hands formed a pair of fists and began walking towards her. "I'm not Batgirl, I'm-"

"I know you're not." A vine shot out from Ivy's wrist. Kara yelled as it wrapped its way around her.

_Break free._

She struggled. She writhed. But as strong as she was, the vine was stronger.

"What are you then?" Ivy whispered. A pair of vines extended from her feet and she brought herself up to come face to face with the writing girl. "Well?"

Kara grit her teeth. The vine was crushing her. Her eyes were watering. Her head…Rao, her head…

"Nothing?" Ivy asked.

"I'm…" She couldn't get anything else out. She could hear everything. Her vision flashed from normal, to x-ray, back to normal.

"Nothing," Ivy whispered. She brought up a finger and popped Kara on her nose, still covered by the mask. "You're nothing." She ripped off the mask and tossed it aside. "You play dress up, and couldn't even get that right."

Kara yelled, and for a moment, Ivy recoiled. But only for a moment, as she said, "you're a mammal too. So I think my pet…" She gestured to the tree, "might like to taste you."

"You're insane," Kara whispered.

Ivy giggled and with her tongue, licked Kara's cheek. "Hmm," she said. "Your skin…I can taste the sun on it…" The vine twisted even harder, and Kara couldn't help it. She screamed.

"Eat up, Fido. Little sunflower's coming in." Ivy laughed as the vine brought Kara closer. Not to its branches, but to the giant mouth that had appeared in the centre of its trunk.

_Oh come on._

Sun fed plants. The sun 'fed' her. A plant was going to eat her. She was probably one of the most powerful people on this planet, and she was going to be consumed by a tree named _Fido_.

In a way, she wanted it. Because then…there'd be no sun. There'd be no sound. She wouldn't have to live in a world where she had to struggle to breathe. She wouldn't get up every day and be forced to reflect how alone she actually was. That she'd been born in a pod, DNA donated by two people she never knew, designed from the womb to do a task that no longer meant anything. That she was the last of a dead race, which had destroyed themselves, their world, and had nearly destroyed this one in their death throes. That she could finally just…let it end.

But then more people would die. And in that knowledge, she knew she had no other choice. So she opened her eyes. Eyes around which her veins were throbbing. Below a head that was screaming. Above lungs that were beating faster and faster. Eyes fed by a yellow sun, now turning the colour of the sky. Eyes, above a mouth that let out a scream, before sending two streams of light into the creature.

_Burn._

The tree howled. Ivy let her go, but Kara just hovered there. Pouring the energy of the sun into the abomination before her. The energy that had given it life, the energy that had tormented her for years, lurking below her skin like venom…she let it out. All of it. The pain. The rage. The terror. All of it.

_Just burn!_

The tree did just that, and only when it fell, only when it stopped moving as the fire consumed it, did Kara stop. The shine in her light faded. Her breathing returned to normal. Her head…it was free of the pain. And as she hovered there, as she turned to Poison Ivy, who was backing away, finally understanding what nightmare she'd awoken…the world seemed so small now.

"Listen sis, I-"

Kara yelled and slammed into her. Ivy yelled, but that didn't last long as Kara grabbed her by the neck, lifting the abomination up into the light of the sun.

"I wonder how much human is even left in you?" she whispered.

"Now come on sister, we-"

"Enough!" Kara's eyes flashed blue again, as Ivy's grew wider. Kara looked over the woman she held in her grasp, at the green skin – the chlorophyll that gave Ivy nourishment through photosynthesis.

"Children of the sun," Kara whispered. She tightened her grip and brought her face in closer. "If I gutted you now, would you even bleed?"

Ivy tried to say something but she was having trouble breathing. No matter how much her body had changed, she still needed to breathe like a human did apparently.

"Can't speak?" Kara whispered, her eyes shining even brighter. "Now you know what it's like. The silence. The helplessness. The sun beating down on you, and being able to do nothing."

"Let her go!"

Her head spun round and behind her were over a dozen police officers. S.W.A.T. officers to be exact, all pointing their guns at her. All of them terrified – as the world grew, she could hear the beating of their hearts.

"Now!"

She could smell their sweat. She could feel her own heart racing, knowing that if she wanted to, she could take them all out. She could have done what Batman had refused to do for years and end the life of this monster before her. She could rise above them. Rise above Kal-El. This world had given her nothing but pain. Why shouldn't she give it back in full?

She knew the answer. There were a thousand reasons not to do any of those things. So she let her grip loosen around Ivy's throat and turned around, before tossing her over her shoulder to the police. They'd have their prize, but she wouldn't let them see her face. Least not before she put the Batman mask back on.

"Ah mammals, always so afraid to confront your own savagery."

Kara winced as she heard the sound of a boot hitting Ivy's chest, and the sound of ribs breaking. Nevertheless, she turned around and walked over to the police officers, most of which still had their guns trained on her.

"You'll want to watch her," Kara said, looking at Ivy. "I think A.R.G.U.S. wants their plant back." She looked back at the officers. "That was a joke by the way. Like, she's not a plant as in a spy, but a human plant. Or, metahuman plant, or…okay, I'm gonna stop talking now."

The officers just stared at her. But at least some were lowering their rifles, so there was that at least.

"I'm, er…gonna go now," Kara said. She patted her head. Headache.

It was half a truth. But it was enough, as she dashed past them. Running under the sun. Feeling the wind in her hair. Tasting the air enter her lungs. Smiling, laughing, weeping with joy, as she at last took to the sky…

…and dropped the mask behind her.


End file.
